Tag Archives: EU

Moscow is soon going to provide video evidence to the EU and OSCE proving that extremists provoked unrest in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry has stated on its Facebook account. “The Western media prefer not to talk about the riots for what they really were, demonstrations arranged by extremist groups. Perhaps the leaders of the European institutions do not know about the actions of these extremists who were disguised as civilians,” the statement reads.

“We are most deeply concerned about what is happening in Ukraine. We are startled to hear that some Western countries misinterpret the events, trying to influence the situation,” the Ministry said.

Western partners should not interfere in Ukrainian internal affairs but use contacts with various political forces in that country for peacemaking, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports. “A mutual profound concern has been expressed regarding the fact that processes are not always constructive,” Lavrov said after negotiations with his Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn.

“We reaffirmed our principled position of non-interference in Ukrainian internal affairs and we expect everyone to stick to a similar logic and use contacts with various political forces in Ukraine for the promotion of peace,” he continued.

One should not try “to gain some timeserving unilateral advantages at a stage when a national dialogue and the return of the entire situation into the legal field are required,” the Russian Foreign Minister said.

The decision to hold early presidential elections in Ukraine in May 2014 disagrees with the crisis settlement deal, which says a constitutional reform should go first, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports.

“The agreement of February 21 stipulates the holding of a [constitutional] reform before September and only after that, when a premise has been emphasized, the presidential election shall be held. So far, we have heard the decision of those in the Verkhovna Rada to hold the presidential election on May 21. This is a deviation from the agreement,” Lavrov said at a press conference after negotiations with his Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn.

A ban on Russian media broadcasts on Ukraine’s national frequencies, should it be introduced, will be a serious violation of human rights, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports.

“We are aware of proposals to prohibit broadcasts in Ukraine by companies of countries that are not signatories to the European Broadcasting Convention. Russia is not a signatory to this convention, but this circumstance has not stopped us from broadcasting across Europe. Such broadcasts have not encountered any problems in any country of the European Union,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

“If such a decision is adopted in Ukraine, it will be serious violation of the freedom of speech,” he added.

The Ukrainian situation can stabilize only if Russia and the European Union cooperate closely, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said, the Voice of Russia correspondent reports.

Asselborn told a press conference after negotiating with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that he personally and the European Union as a whole were confident that close cooperation between the EU and Russia was the only way to achieve normalization and stability in Ukraine.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has criticized the abolition of Ukraine’s language law, which made Russian an official language in Ukraine, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports.

“A democratic state needs to respect the languages used by its people. And I totally agree with those who say that if a law restricting the use of [ethnic minority] languages has been passed, it is a step in the wrong direction,” Asselborn said at a press conference after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.

A democratic country ought to observe media freedoms as well, he added.

Ukraine is on the brink of a financial meltdown and Russia should join the international campaign for financial assistance to this country, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports.

He said after negotiations with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that the matter concerned the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, other countries and organizations but they also thought that Russia should join that consortium for helping Ukraine’s economic and financial advancement.

The Luxembourg minister said they realized that Ukraine was very close to a financial disaster.

It would be ideal to create a group of states for rendering assistance to Ukraine and Russia should also make a contribution, he said. In the opinion of the minister, there is a need for very active cooperation between Russia and Ukraine and other international organizations.

The European Union has not ruled out its contribution to financial and economic assistance that may be extended to Ukraine after a new government is formed in the country, saying that it relies on cooperation with Russia on this issue, the Voice of Russia correspondent Kira Kalinina reports.

Consultations on this matter are currently under way in different capitals of the European Union, the head of the EU Delegation to Russia, Ambassador Vygaudas Usackas, told reporters in Moscow.

The EU will be ready to grant financial assistance to Ukraine as soon as a new government appears in the country and as soon as this government formulates a viable program needed to stabilize Ukraine’s economy and market, he said.

The EU will be prepared to do so using the financial instruments with which it has been working, including the International Monetary Fund, Usackas said.

Hopefully, the EU and Russia would be able to work together on this issue, he added.

Ex-Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko and former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka are among those whom the Rada wants to be tried in the ICC.

All are accused of “crimes against humanity during the peaceful protests in the period of November 30, 2013, and February 22, 2014.”

“During the period of three months the law enforcement agencies have been following the orders of the highest Ukrainian authorities. They used violence against the peaceful activists in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities,” said a Rada statement.

“Over 100 Ukrainian citizens have been killed and 2,000 injured as a result of such actions,” it added.

During the discussions the MPs also proposed to add the names of ex-deputy prime minister, ex-PM and ex-security council secretary. However the names were not approved by all the members of the Rada.

“The list will be extended with the names of those whose guilt is proven,” added Turchinov.

The Hague war crimes court didn’t confirm the information that Ukraine asked it to investigate the case of Yanukovich and other Ukrainian ex-ministers.

“A government can make a declaration accepting the court’s jurisdiction for past events,” said ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah, adding that the court’s prosecutor would decide whether or not to open an investigation.

The three-month political crisis in Ukraine escalated last Tuesday, with radical opposition activists and riot police engaged in two days of clashes in Ukraine capital, Kiev.

The central Ukrainian government collapsed under opposition pressure and President Yanukovich left the capital and de facto resigned his office. His whereabouts are still unknown.

On Sunday the new parliament voted to appoint its freshly-elected Speaker Aleksandr Turchinov as acting president of Ukraine.

The new regime immediately voted to strip Yanukovich of his powers, capitalizing on his absence from the capital, and voted for snap elections which are to be held on May 25.

A day later, on Monday, Rada put President Yanukovich on the wanted list on suspicion of involvement in mass killings during the riots in Kiev.

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, will next meet Thursday to discuss the formation of a national unity government – a debate originally scheduled for Tuesday.

“The vote on the national unity government should be on Thursday,” said interim President Aleksandr Turchinov, adding that forming the government is the top task needed to stabilize the situation in Ukraine.

Gen. Leonid Ivashov: US and EU threatening Russia with “a new type of war” that begins as informational and psychological operations

On February 5 a Russian news website, KM.ru, posted an interview with Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the former foreign relations head of the Russian Ministry of Defense and current president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies. The interview was completely ignored by the corporate media in the United States and Europe due to its frank examination of the EuroMaidan revolution in Ukraine and the role played by Obama’s State Department and EU ministers in overthrowing the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Ivashov said the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria represent “a new type of war” that begin as informational and psychological operations. EU officials and Secretary of State John Kerry, Ivashov said, “very conscientiously and scrupulously studied and continue to study the doctrine of Dr. Goebbels,” the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Goebbels said, expanding on Hitler’s definition of the Big Lie.

I think our Foreign Ministry does not understand that there is a war, and the war has its own laws,” Ivashov explained. The new war has an “anti-Russian orientation,” but this is not fully understood by the Russian Foreign Ministry. If it was, Russia would present the facts “as they are” and the real agenda of the United States and the European Union would be exposed.

The Syrian and Ukraine interventions, Ivashov said, are controlled from Brussels, the headquarters of the EU. “They make plans, carry out a coordinating function, provide installation and finance. This is true for Syria, and with regard to Ukraine.”

Moreover, what Obama and Kerry have “encouraged in Kiev” – violent demonstrations where armed paramilitaries target police – would be “severely repressed” in the United States. “European leaders have dispersed unauthorized demonstrations using water cannons and demonstrators are imprisoned. But they hold the opposite position in the case of Ukraine.”

In the United States, for instance, the government conspired to undermine the non-violent Occupy Wall Street movement and went so far as to target leaders of the movement for assassination. The effort to demonize and attack the political opposition in the United States spans decades, most notably under the aegis of the FBI, America’s political police, and its COINTELPRO operation.

In addition to mobilizing demonstrations through “democracy” NGOs and agencies of the U.S. government, the United States placed warships in the Black Sea (under the pretense they would be used to provide security at the Sochi Olympic Games) and sent an influx of tanks to Germany prior to the orchestrated overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected government.

Moreover, the so-called EU “Association Agreement” ultimately rejected by Yanukovych and cited as a pretext igniting demonstrations in the Ukrainian capitol, was in fact a NATO Trojan Horse, not an economic remedy for the Ukrainian people.

“For NATO, the goal is expansion,” former Congressman Dennis Kucinich wrote last December, well before the engineered explosion removing Yanukovych from office. “The prize is access to a country that shares a 1,426-mile border with Russia. The geopolitical map would be dramatically reshaped by the Agreement, with Ukraine serving as the new front for Western missile defense at the doorstep of Russia.”

On February 5, Ivashov warned about the possibility NATO troops would be required to restore order. Due to the success of the coup and the speedy collapse of the government, however, this option was not required. Over the weekend, Ukraine’s new leaders promised to deliver the country into the hands of the IMF and unelected EU ministers.

The final stage in Ukraine will be an attempt to wrest Crimea away from Russia. On Sunday, Time magazine speculated the peninsula, overwhelmingly Russian in orientation, will ultimately appeal to Russia for protection, thus igniting a conflict similar to the one in South Ossetia in 2008. That short war was initiated by the U.S. puppet, Mikheil Saakashvili, who oversaw the murder of Russian peacekeepers in the autonomous Georgian Oblast that had declared independence in 1990. The conflict, as Paul Craig Roberts notes, was blamed on Russia by the corporate media despite the role played by Saakashvili.

The pattern, now increasingly understood by the Russians, is unmistakeable.The EuroMaidan revolution ushering in the predatory vulture economic policies of the financial elite operating out of the IMF and the totalitarian globalist agenda of the EU is a nuanced repeat of what went down in Saakashvili’s Georgia. Orchestrated out of the U.S.State Department by then ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003 was a creature of the same forces at work in Ukraine – the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation, and other subversive NGOs controlled by the globalists.

The new Ukrainian authorities have put missing, ousted, President Yanukovich on the wanted list on suspicion of involvement in mass killings during the riots in Kiev. He was reportedly last seen at his residence in Crimea.

The arrest warrant was issued on Monday, acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced on his Facebook page.

He added that Yanukovich was last seen on Sunday night leaving his security detail a private resort in Crimea in southern Ukraine.

In addition to Yanukovich, some other officials are now wanted in Ukraine, Avakov said, but did not name them.

The ousted Ukrainian leader had fled Kiev last week after days of deadly clashes between armed radical protesters and security forces.

He was believed to have visited the city of Kharkov on Saturday and later tried to leave the country, but failed when his plane was not allowed to take off by the border guards, who said it hadn’t filed the proper paperwork. His exact movements were unknown to the public.

But Avakov’s report details a suggested travel route that Yanukovich may have taken, which includes helicopter trips from Kiev to Kharkov and later from Kharkov to Donetsk, two failed attempts to leave that city on separate private jets, a motorcade transfer to a private Crimean resort and later to another one in Crimean Balaclava.

There he offered his bodyguards the choice either to go with him or stay. Those who stayed were issued official resignations of their governmental security detail, Avakov said.

Various reports on Sunday night and Monday claimed that Yanukovich had been arrested in Donetsk, hiding with a thousand-strong entourage in a monastery, was preparing his personal yacht to sail away through the Black Sea, or had been assassinated by foreign special services.

So far the rumor mill has not been accurate.

The opposition-controlled parliament earlier tried to impeach Yanukovich, but later decided not to follow procedure and simply declared him deposed on the grounds that he is not conducting his presidential duties.

His own Party of Regions blamed him for the killings in Kiev and the chaos that befell Ukraine.

Yanukovich’s downfall came after three months of mishandling the political crisis, during which he failed either to meet enough opposition demands to ensure the deflation of the tension or act decisively to restore public order.

As he avoided taking responsibility, the opposition forces became increasingly dominated by radical activists, who eventually resorted to violence against police to attain their goals.

The situation in Ukraine remains unstable, with reports of vigilantism on the ground, brewing secessionist sentiment in the predominantly-Russian east and south of the country, the paralysis of the national security service and a looming financial collapse.

MOSCOW — The sudden collapse of the Kremlin-backed government in Ukraine has for now delivered a profound setback to President Vladimir V. Putin’s strategy to deepen political and economic ties with the country and thus keep it from embracing Europe.

Even as Russia celebrates the closing of Olympic Games that defied some dire expectations, Mr. Putin now faces the task of reasserting Russia’s influence in a country that it considers a fraternal ally, one with deep cultural, social and political connections that bind it to Moscow’s orbit regardless of its new government.

Russia still has enormous leverage and close allies in Ukraine, particularly in the east and on the Crimea Peninsula, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and a sizable ethnic Russian population that views the leaders of the political uprising that toppled President Viktor F. Yanukovych with disdain.

That has raised fears that Russia would use the disenchanted populations there as a pretext to intervene to reverse Ukraine’s new trajectory — even militarily, as the Kremlin did in two ethnic enclaves in 2008 in another former Soviet republic, Georgia.

The fears have been so palpable — and the subject of endless speculation in Ukraine and here in Russia — that President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, warned in a television interview on Sunday that it “would be a grave mistake” for Russia to use force. “It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence return and the situation escalate,” Ms. Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

How exactly Russia responds remains to be seen, but the turmoil is certain to further strain relations with Europe and the United States, which officials here have denounced for meddling in Ukraine at the expense of Russia’s vital interests. At the same time, the United States and Europe have accused Russia of trying to impose its will there.

Mr. Putin’s envoy refused to sign the agreement mediated on Friday by three European foreign ministers to end two days of carnage in the capital, Kiev, only to have the agreement overtaken by a political upheaval that threatens to undercut Russia’s influence over any new government.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, complained on Sunday that while Mr. Yanukovych had honored the terms of the agreement — which called for new elections and a return of constitutional powers to the Parliament — his political opponents had not. Instead, the Parliament has effectively seized power and is now rushing through an emboldened series of votes that have provoked rage among Russian lawmakers and commentators.

“It’s a confusing situation,” Mr. Peskov said in a telephone interview from Sochi, where Mr. Putin attended the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. “We have to figure out what we are facing there. Is it a coup or what?”

Mr. Putin has not yet made any public statements about the latest events, as is often the case when he is confronted by unexpected challenges or crises. “Let’s wait and see,” Mr. Peskov said.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Yanukovych have spoken several times in recent weeks to discuss the situation there, but Mr. Peskov said he did not know whether they had spoken since Saturday, when Mr. Yanukovych’s legitimacy evaporated and he fled Kiev, leaving protesters swarming through his opulent presidential compound.

It is clear that Mr. Putin has followed the crisis intently, even as he attended to the Olympic festivities that he clearly has relished as a symbol of a new Russia. On Friday he met with his national security advisers on Friday and a day later dispatched two Russian lawmakers to a regional party congress in Eastern Ukraine that had been called to rally opposition to the new political authorities in Kiev.

Vladimir Lukin, the envoy Mr. Putin sent to Kiev at Mr. Yanukovych’s request during the negotiations with the Europeans, returned to Moscow and criticized the European foreign ministers for siding with “the nationalist-revolutionary terrorist Maidan,” referring to the square that has been the nucleus of the protests, and not the “legitimate government that they recognized.”

Only hours before the closing ceremony in Sochi, Mr. Putin spoke by telephone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. The Kremlin said in a statement only that they discussed the situation in Ukraine, Germany’s foreign office went further, saying that the two leaders agreed that “the territorial integrity of Ukraine must be preserved.”

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, spoke with Secretary of State John Kerry for a second time in two days, and Russia later announced that it had recalled its ambassador in Kiev because of “the deteriorating situation” in the country. The State Department released a statement saying that Mr. Kerry expressed support for the votes in Ukraine’s Parliament and called on Russia to support the transition now underway.

As in Ukraine itself, there were already some signs that Russia had given up on Mr. Yanukovych, but that hardly meant that officials in Moscow would welcome the new government that emerges. Russia’s Foreign Ministry posted a photograph on Twitter of a World War II memorial being toppled in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, joining the many Lenin statues that have been pulled down. “Nazis comeback,” it said in muddled English.

A vote by Ukraine’s Parliament to curtail the Russian language’s role in its school curriculum, one of a flurry of new laws adopted, also prompted a similarly ominous warning from one of Russia’s deputy prime ministers, Dmitri O. Rogozin. “The main enemy — the Russian language,” he wrote on Twitter. “Then — all Russians in Ukraine. Then — all who are for a union with Russia.”

Others sounded more tempered. Russia has suspended the $15 billion in financial assistance it pledged to Ukraine in December, but its finance minister, Anton Siluanov, said Sunday that it was still possible to continue with the loans once a new government was formed. He also said Russia would abide by its current contracts to provide natural gas, something it has previously used as a lever when relations soured.

In the end, of all the problems that threatened to overshadow the Olympic Games in Sochi — terrorism, construction delays, even the weather — the one that materialized in Ukraine was one few expected.

Sergei A. Markov, a political strategist who advises the Kremlin, criticized what he called the “cynical geopolitical games” that European leaders have played in Ukraine, but also suggested that Russia, too, needed a new approach now. “It’s simply necessary for Moscow to reformat the Ukraine element of its foreign policy,” he told Interfax.

A handout picture released on December 10, 2013 by Ukrainian Union Opposition press services hows US Assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland (R) distributing cakes to protesters on the Independence Square in Kiev on December 10, 2013. AFP

After Libya, another criminal and murderous campaign by NATO, after Syria, where the FUKUS Axis (France, UK, US) bared their ugly teeth arming terrorists, cannibals, rapists, torturers and murderers (NATO’s demonic bedpals), we now have Ukraine, where a part of the population, blinded by youthful zeal, along with groups of thugs, bandits and terrorists and agents provocateurs from abroad (Libya, yes Libya, Syria, Moldova among them, including Islamist Fundamentalist terrorists), have brought havoc, mayhem and chaos to a country led by its democratically elected President.

It is inconceivable that the people of the Ukraine as a whole desire to fall into the hands of Satanic forces which control these thugs, who today, have won a victory in a localized battle, but whose very presence in “Euro-Maidan” (aka Independence Square) is an insult to the image of the country, a victory for criminals and murderers and a loud hurrah for those who believe that might is right and any country can be brought to its knees through kowtowing to external forces whipping up internal dissent.

How many of those demonstrating in Kiev and cheering that Timoshenko female (why does she wear that stupid wig? and what’s with the wheelchair?) remember why she was thrown into jail? How many of those demonstrating in Kiev were wearing Fascist insignia? How many of those demonstrating have ties to criminal organizations in Ukraine? How many of those demonstrating have clear links to terrorist organizations? How many were from Kiev, how many were bussed in from the furthest corners of Western Ukraine, how many were paid 30 Euro a day to come over the border from Moldova?

Nobody is defending that starry-eyed youngsters with a passion in their hearts should be shot dead on the street. But one thing is a peaceful demonstration, another is allowing it to be hijacked by criminals and murderers who not only shoot at the police but also, if we believe credible reports, even fired on their “own” side – the demonstrators – to whip up fury. That, ladies and gentlemen, smacks of CIA operational modus operandi.

Would anyone put it past them?

So now on D-Day plus one, the party is over and the nightmarish hangover begins. The Ukraine’s starry-eyed pro-Euro youngsters have awoken with a nasty gate-crasher sleeping in their midst – criminals, terrorists and foreign agents – whom they must expel from the house before he wakes up. Then they have to face the consequences of what they have done.

It would come as no surprise if that Timoshenko female miraculously rose from her wheelchair, allowing that blonde wig to fall to the ground and reveal a head bedecked with unkempt black hair (rather a different spectacle and a somewhat sinister one), proclaiming to all and sundry that the Euro Show is the way to go. (Cheers! Hoorays).

And the Euro Show will bring (violins) prosperity, the Euro Show will triple Ukraine’s Great Domestic Product at a stroke, the Euro Show will bring new and fresh opportunities for Ukraine’s youth, jobs, jobs, jobs, prospects, freedom an’ (cough) Democracy (the same type that is installed from 30,000 feet, the same type which yesteryear civilized savages with the Bible and the Bullet). (Silence violins).

(Silence). (Start slow drum beat). The rivers of Ukraine will turn into torrents of salt, the fruit of the tears of those starry-eyed Ukrainian youths caught up in a storm of someone else’s making, turning into tears of blood as they realize what they have done. The Euro Show is no more or less than a real-life version of the nightmarish Hostel films, where innocent young travelers are tortured to death in the most horrific way. In this case the victim is the Ukraine, and its future.

The European Union, the frontispiece of the International Monetary Fund and the dark workings from Washington whose dirty work the Union does, ably led by the FUKUS duo France and the UK, will bring no such opportunities.

The Euro road will finance Ukrainians to sit on their backsides, will pay farmers not to work, will force factories to close, will scrap fishing fleets and will prepare the ground for the wholesale sell-out of that vastly wealthy country, the Ukraine, to the lobbies which control Washington and its EU puppet. Do the Ukrainians really believe the French would allow the competition from Ukraine’s huge farms, that the Germans would allow Ukraine’s factories to provide a cheaper alternative, that the Spanish would allow a rival fishing fleet to operate? Get real!

There will be no jobs, there will be no opportunities except to beg for money on the EU’s shit-shotten streets or serve Germans with beer and Wurst – or indeed, claim Social Benefit in the UK like everyone else – the Ukraine will be saddled with a massive debt repayment which will cripple its economy for decades to come, a burden from which it will never recover.

Those who have tried the Euro dream know what I am speaking about. While one can forgive Ukraine’s starry-eyed youth because they know not (fully) what they are doing, one cannot forget that there is a consequence for every action. Let us hope that Ukraine does not take what is sold as the easy option, because in today’s world, there is no bezplatno, there are no free lunches. Does anyone really believe that the EU is about prosperity? Then why are there over one million Poles in the UK?

As I write, President Yanukovich is still the democratically elected President of the Ukraine and there exists something called law and order. Not all Ukrainians are in Kiev, not all Ukrainians side with the starry-eyed youth on Euro-Maidan and the monsters hiding in their midst.

She will meet “key stakeholders and discuss the support of the European Union for a lasting solution to the political crisis and measures to stabilise the economic situation,” a statement from her office said Sunday.

The European Union “follows the situation in Ukraine closely,” the statement said, calling on all sides in Ukraine to engage in “meaningful and inclusive dialogue leading to a lasting solution of the crisis”.

It also stressed that the solution must “protect the unity and territorial integrity of the country” and usher in a stable and democratic future

Dmitry Rogozin: If Ukrainian protests are peaceful, Catherine Ashton
is a ballerina - English pravda.ru.
21.02.2014
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin expressed his anger with
the assessment of Ukrainian events by EU High Representative for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton.According to him, 75 people
have been killed in Kiev, of whom at least 15 are police officers."But
the head of European diplomacy Catherine Ashton continues to mutter
about "the peaceful nature of the protests." If these are peaceful
protests, then Ashton is a ballerina," the politician stated.
Earlier, Ashton stated that the EU continued to offer Ukraine to sign
the agreement on association and provide support on the path of reforms.

The United States is losing the game to Russia in Ukraine due to its miscalculated attempts at ousting the government in Kiev, an analyst writes in a column for the Press TV website.

“The problem with Washington’s plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold,” Paul Craig Roberts wrote in a column on Sunday.

That “the chosen US puppets” have lost control of the protests to Nazism-linked armed radical elements is one of the problems, he said, adding that the other is the fact that “Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence.”

“If the democratically elected Ukraine government is overthrown, the eastern and southern parts would rejoin Russia,” wrote Roberts.

He added that Western banks and corporations will then loot the western part and Russian missiles will target the NATO bases in Ukraine.

“It would be a defeat for Washington and their gullible Ukrainian dupes to see half of the country return to Russia,” the analyst wrote.

Roberts said Washington has ignored the fact that Ukraine’s “financially viable part” is dominated by the Russian culture.

He noted that Washington may have to “provoke a great power confrontation” in a last-ditch attempt to save face.

Ukraine has been rocked by anti-government protests since Yanukovych refrained from signing an Association Agreement with the EU on November 29, 2013, in favor of closer ties with Russia.

Ukraine’s newly-elected parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Turchyno announced on Sunday that lawmakers must form a national unity government in the Eastern European country by Tuesday.

President Viktor Yanukovych has reportedly departed from Kiev, but his whereabouts and legitimacy are still unclear.

Yanukovych said on Saturday that he had been forced to leave Kiev because of “vandalism, crime and a coup.”

“I don’t plan to leave the country. I don’t plan to resign. I am the legitimate president,” he stressed.

The ‘Soviet Soldier’ – a monument commemorating the collective sacrifice of the Soviet army against Nazi forces – has been toppled in western Ukraine. This follows the country-wide fall of some two dozen Lenin statues.

The taking down of the ‘Soviet Soldier’ in the town of Stryi, Lvov region, turns a new page in the chaos that gripped the nation in November, and has taken on dangerously nationalist overtones in the past fortnight.

The city administration’s website first reported on the story of the monument, erected in 1965 as a companion piece to two other objects: an obelisk with WWII engravings and the Eternal Flame over the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

No official confirmation of any orders for its removal has been given.

The incident follows the dismantling of some 25 statues of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 1917 revolution that paved way to the creation of the USSR.

One of the latest in a string of such incidents, in Dnepropetrovsk, saw people using ropes and a saw, before jumping onto the statue – the way people did in Iraq when Saddam Hussein lost power. The writing on the monument was then taken apart letter by letter, which the rioters kept as souvenirs

A protester breaks apart a statue of Lenin at a monument in his honor after it was pulled down during a mass rally called “The March of a Million” in Kiev’s Independence Square on December 8, 2013.

People surround a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, which was toppled by protesters during a rally organized by supporters of EU integration in Kiev, December 8, 2013.

The opposition-controlled Ukrainian parliament has voted to appoint its freshly-elected Speaker Aleksandr Turchinov as acting president. MPs supporting the move arguing that President Yanukovich has de facto resigned his office.

Viktor Yanukovich previously rejected opposition calls to voluntarily step down, which would have saved the parliament taking constitutional impeachment procedures. But parliament, which sees itself as the only legitimate body in Ukraine, decided to replace the president without an impeachment.

Turchinov was elected the new speaker of the parliament on Saturday after his predecessor, Vladimir Rybak, resigned his position after the opposition took control of the legislature.

Parliament is considering a number of key decisions that need to be taken in order to assume full power in Ukraine, including appointing a new prime minister, a new prosecutor general and other top officials.

It has also voted to oust top figures of the Yanukovich government, with the latest victims being acting Foreign Minister, Leonid Kozhara, acting Education Minister Dmitry Tabachnik and acting health minister Raisa Bogatyryova.

Among other bills the parliament is to consider are one outlawing Yanukovich’s Party of Regions and the Ukrainian Communist Party, both of which have elected MPs in the parliament. And another one seeks to censor Russian media, accusing them of biased reporting on the protests in Ukraine.

The new authorities in Kiev say they are seeking the arrest of former senior officials, like former Incomes Minister Aleksandr Klimenko and former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka. Both were reportedly stopped on Saturday by border control due to lack of proper paperwork, as they were trying to leave Ukraine.

The legitimation of the power grab comes a day after several regions in eastern and southern Ukraine announced that they do not consider the Ukrainian parliament legitimate and would not abide by its orders. The regions also said they would be forming local militias to resist possible incursions of radical activists from western Ukraine and Kiev.

The three month-long political crisis in Ukraine escalated on Tuesday, with radical opposition activists and riot police engaged in two days of gunfighting in Kiev, resulting in some 80 people losing their lives. In the face of the bloodshed, the central Ukrainian government collapsed under opposition pressure, while President Yanukovich left the capital and went to the east of the country.